


The Swan Scientist

by fateforgotme



Category: Black Swan (2010), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Ballet, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, F/M, Jane dances ballet, Natasha dances ballet, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-16 07:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4617318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fateforgotme/pseuds/fateforgotme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Darcy and the Avengers found out that Jane used to be a professional ballet dancer. Back story comes from the move Black Swan, but no knowledge of it needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1: Darcy Lewis

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction will eventually involve the rest of the avengers, each getting their own chapter of how the found out that Jane used to be a ballet dancer. The back story comes frome the Natalie Portman movie The Black Swan, but I have taken several liberties like, SPOILER ALERT, Nina does not die, her name was not Nina it is Jane, and she did not go completely insane and kill someone, but she quit after the opening performance of Swan Lake, but no knowledge of the movie is required, I just got the idea from the movie. So enjoy.

Chapter 1: Darcy Lewis

Post Thor.

Jane was going through her stretches to center her self after her, well stressful few days when Darcy walked in. 

"Wow, boss lady I didn't know you were so flexible, I can't imagine why Donald would have left, if he knew you could pull moves like that in bed."

"Ha Darcy, funny, you know not all relationships are based on how good you are in bed."

"Maybe, but the fun ones are."

"I'd like to point out that my relationship with Donald was very, fun."

"I bet a relationship with Thor would be even funner."

"Funner is not a word Darcy."

"Is now, but seriously how are you all like this?" Darcy asked gesturing to Jane who was doing a ponche. Jane straighten up a took a deep breath.

"You know I wasn't always a scientist, and well before I became one I was a professional ballet dancer."

"Why did you quit?"

"I quit because I lost myself, I got too deep in the ballet, I was striving for perfection that is unattainable and I hurt myself in the process, I was going insane," she sighed, "so I quit doing it professionally and just danced when I felt like it, to express myself without fear of making mistake, I love to dance but I didn't love it destroying me, I nearly killed myself, that's why I quit."

"Wow heavy, I feel like I should hug you now."

"Please don't."

"Too late" Darcy yelled as she bundled the upright Jane into a tight hug, "I feel that I should now confess that I'm an assassin."

"Darcy!"

"Just kidding!"

\------

So that's chapter one of my first ever fanfic, so please constructive criticism and I'll try to make the next chapters longer. Thanks. Also please note there might be an assassin Darcy fanfiction in the future.

fateforgotme


	2. Thor

Chapter 2: Thor

Tony Stark had invited Jane to continue her work on creating a rainbow bridge, as Thor called, at Stark tower or Avengers tower as it was now known as. Apparently Mr.Stark "call me Tony" had invited all the avengers and their significant others to live, and if possible even work at the tower. To sweeten the deal Tony had even invited Darcy to be employed as an assistant to Pepper and a scientist wrangler, and of course Jane accepted the chance to live with Thor and have proper science equipment. So the scientist and assistant packed up the London apartment and boarded the Stark Industries private jet to New York. 

When they arrived at the tower they were showed to their rooms. Darcy had a room across the hall from Clint Barton, and Jane her room was sharing with Thor on the floor above. Jane was starting to wonder where her God of Thunder was because she had not seen him yet when she was wrapped in a massive hug from behind and lifted from the floor. 

"My lady Jane the man of iron told me you had arrived, and were unpacking so I have come to offer my services because I do not want to be away from you any longer."

"I missed you too Thor," she said as she kissed him softly, "and I would love a hand with the boxes."

Jane and Thor worked comfortably together to unpack the boxes, both catching up on the goings on in the tower and in the science world. They were nearly finished when Thor opend a box and exclaimed with horror,

"Jane what are there midgardian torture devices doing here?"

Jane let out a groan and her thoughts immediately went to Darcy, knowing her Darcy could either be into kinky sex or had added it to Jane's boxes just to freak Thor out. Jane stifled another groan and wondered over to Thor wondering how she was going to explain that some people were into different things when she saw exactly what she was referring too.

"Thor, those aren't torture devices those are ballet shoes and the rest of the stuff is my ballet equipment."

"Ballet, I do not know this word."

"It is a sport, it is very graceful and controlled, it is mostly practiced by women and they wear these pointe shoes, but it is also practiced by men, but not as many. I used to practice it every day but now I just do it when I feel like it."

"I still do not understand this sport."

"Come here I'll show you a video," and then Jane spoke to JARVIS, "JARVIS can you bring up a clip of the nutcracker ballet for Thor, and please project it on to the main screen."

"Of course miss Foster." He replied his British accent coming out over the discreet speaker. 

Once the music started up and the ballerinas started to dance, Thor was enthralled as he watched the leap, pirouette and dance across the screen. When the curtain closed and the video turned off Thor turned to Jane and in a hushed voice filled with awe he said,

"I would very much like to see you dance one day my fair lady."

To which Jane replied with "I would very much like to dance for you one day too."

\-----

So chapter 2 is up and this is set after Thor the dark world.


	3. Natasha Romanov

Chapter 3: Natasha 

Jane had been in the tower for nearly a week when Natasha approached her,

"You know," Natasha said, "Thor might not always be there to protect you so you might want to learn how to protect yourself, if your interested tonight the rest of the girls and I are going to be at the gym at 6, where workout clothes if your coming."

And before Jane had even said a word Natasha had already slipped off. It was a good idea Jane thought, and she would be there with Pepper, Betty, Hill and Sharon as well as Natasha, and who better to teach me how to protect myself than the black widow, to bad Darcy was going to miss the training session, but Darcy and Clint had just gone on there first date after there one night stand in New Mexico.

Jane arrived at the gym at a quarter to six and spent a few minutes changing into her gym clothes and stowing her ballet bag in one of the many lockers before entering the gym area because she wanted to dance for a bit after if she wasn't exhausted from the workout. Jane entered the gym and was pleased to find she wasn't the last to arrive, Sharon and Maria had still to show.

"Hey Jane," Pepper greeted her, "we weren't sure if you'd show, thought you might have lost your self in the land of science and forgot about this."she said as she gestured to the gym. 

Jane was save from replying by the arrival of Maria and Sharon.

"Sorry we're late," they smiled, "got held back at headquarters."

Natasha just frowned at them and Sharon stuck her tongue out, they all cracked easy grins and everybody grabbed a mat and Natasha started to lead them all through a series of yoga exercises that steadily got harder and harder to hold, at the start of the session Natasha had told Jane to do what she could and drop out when she couldn't continue, everyone was surprised when Jane kept going after Betty and Pepper had stopped.

Jane couldn't help but smile internally at the stunned faces of everybody else when it was just her and Natasha left doing the exercises, she knew they thought of her as week and puny scientist, so she took a moment to shed her sweater to revile a skinny, toned body that made jaws drop. 

When Jane finally stopped Natasha moved straight on to self defense teaching them blocks and punches, how to kick, fall and dive. Natasha was slightly suspicious of Jane having a well built body for someone who is meant to be in a lab all day, and she immediately thought someone managed to in infiltrate avengers tower, until it became clear Jane had no clue how to defend her self. 

The class ended at around eight after a quick cool down and everybody but Jane had left, she went straight to her ballet bag and started a quick stretch before she began to dance, Jane was still warm from the training session so she did not have to do much. Jane went and grabbed her stark phone, selected a playlist of ballet songs a put it on shuffle. She walked in to the middle of the mirrored room and began her routine when she was half way through she heard a door open and close softly, but continued to dance. When the song ended she glanced over to the visitor surprised to find Natasha there with her own pair of pointe shoes, she gave a small smile.

"You trained professionally," Natasha stated after watching Jane. 

"I did." Jane replied, "please don't tell anyone, I kinda gave it up professionally for personal reasons I don't feel comfortable enough to share yet."

"I won't, if I can join you."

"Please, it would be nice to have some company."

"I wondered how you were so fit for someone who was meant to be behind a desk, I guess now I know the answer."

And with that they both walked over to the barre and started doing grand battements in time.


	4. Clint Barton

Chapter 4: Clint

Natasha had been acting strange, not very strange, just a little strange. Usually it took her a while to warm up to new people but Jane and Natasha were very friendly, hanging out together, having private training sessions, and Natasha was even making sure Jane was eating enough and pulling her away from the science when Darcy was busy being Pepper's assistant.

Clint knew this was strange behavior for Natasha so he decided to follow Jane around and see what was up between the two of them. He knew it wasn't anything really sinister, but Jane had contact with asguardians and well they were known for their persuasive powers and mind control thanks to Loki.

Clint was starting to regret his decision after watching Jane for seven hours from his vent doing nothing but science, all Jane seemed to do was write equations, rub them out, fiddle with machines that were held together by duck tape and prayers and consume the occasional pop tart that was shoved into her hand and drink cold tea.

At five minutes to six an JARVIS said,

"Miss Rushman would like me to inform you that your presence is requested in the gym in five minutes."

"Oh, shit!" Jane exclaimed.

To say Clint was surprised was an under statement, he had never herd the astrophysicist swear and honestly he did not even thing she had it in her to do so.

Jane was now bustling around the lab saving her work and shouting at JARVIS to tell Natasha she was coming but would be a few minutes late. When Jane was sure all her work was saved she grabbed a duffel bag that was stuffed in a corner that Clint had missed on his first sweep of the lab, and ran out the sliding doors of the lab and straight to the gym to meet Natasha to dance.

Clint opened the vent and grabbed the side, he shuffled his body forward till only his legs were inside the vent and still holding on he allowed his body to drop forward slowly vans his legs to slide out of the vent, till he was just dangling in the air. Clint dropped to the floor smoothly and finished with a roll to absorb the impact, with a quick glance at Jane's lab which was a bit of a mess, but no where near as bad as Tony's, he strolled out the door and made his way to the gym a few minutes behind Jane.

Clint reached the gym level and made his way into the vents when he heard the ballet music.

'Natasha must be teaching Jane how to dance,' he thought.

When he reached an opening in the vent which allowed him to view the gym room they were working in he saw Natasha dancing a ballet routine as gracefully as ever, she was dancing the white swan and she was soft and light on her feet, then the music changes and Natasha was the black swan, she was a fierce as ever and was starting to do pirouettes when Jane began to shout,

"Attack it, attack it, attack it."

Natasha finished the segment of dance and collapsed exhausted. Jane went up to her with a bottle of water and a towel.

"Your doing good, but your still to stiff, your meant to be light for the white swan and full of passion for the black swan, and your not attacking your pirouettes as strongly as you can, you have to straighten your supporting leg."

Then Jane proceeded to demo straight what she meant and even to Clint's untrained eye he could see that Jane was a better dancer, and she was teaching Natasha how to dance not the other way around.

"You know this was the last last piece I preformed on stage before I quit, I was the swan queen," Jane paused and began to tell Natasha that the stress of trying to be prefect for the part made her suicidal and in the last act of the opening performance she stabbed herself because Jane had felt that she had finally reached the perfection and did not want to never be as perfect as she was in that moment. After a few months in hospital she got better a realized how the professional world of ballet had destroyed her she quit and only dances for herself now if she wants to and not because anyone is making her.

But Clint did not hear any of this, when he realized that Jane was starting to approach a deep topic he left to give them privacy, safe in the knowledge Natasha had found a true friend.


	5. Steve Rogers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note I have not seen center stage, I have just read some reviews that stated the dancing was unrealistic and it did not portray the ballet world correctly. So basically I am just using the movie name and the fact it has ballet in it for my gain, so just imagine there watching a really bad ballet movie, and now I present chapter 5.

Chapter 5: Steve

"Hey Jane." Steve said as Jane walked into the common room, "do you want to join us were watching center stage."

Jane looked around to see all the avengers minus Tony, who was still in his lab spread across the couches and floor with buckets of popcorn. Jane gave in, she had spent all morning in the lab and was exhausted, the equation just wasn't working and she could go back later to look at it with fresh eyes, but now all she needed to do was relax. 

"Thanks Steve." Jane said as she sunk down into the couch between Thor and Natasha, stealing some popcorn from them.

Steve glanced at Jane's hand in Natasha's popcorn and was amazed it had not been batted away, last time he tried to steal Natasha's popcorn he nearly lost the ability to have children, and Jane was doing this without any consequences. Natasha catching his shocked look smirked at Steve and delicately rested a piece of popcorn on her tongue, and then bit viciously down making Steve cringe. 

During each dance scene Natasha and Jane kept making comments about how crap it was and throwing popcorn at the screen, which Clint was catching before it hit the floor. Steve was getting steadily more and more annoyed that Jane and Natasha could not seem to shut up and just appreciate the ballet, which Steve thought was excellent because he had never seen a proper ballet before. 

"Please, just shut it, why can't you enjoy the ballet, it's beautiful." Steve muttered as another round of commentary started, "it's not like you can dance like that." He said as one of the dancers pulled off three pirouettes and finished in an arabesque. 

"Steve the dancing is crap, Jane could dance better than that." Said Natasha, she was trying to bait him, she knew he had never seem a real ballet dance before and she wanted to stun him, and for him to see how much better Jane was compared to the ballerinas on the screen. Steve fell for it hook line and sinker. 

"Jane please demonstrate your skills and do what they just did, like Natasha said you could."

"Well I haven't warmed up so don't expect it to be perfect, but I'll give it my best shot," said Jane as she stood up and walked in to the middle of the room. 

Jane took her position and started to spin, she couldn't help but show off, instead of doing three turns in passé and finishing in a arabesque she did the three passé turns and then continued on to do five more and when she got enough speed she caught her leg behind her in ring and straighten it doing several fast spins, before finishing in a high arabesque. 

"Er... Sorry I got kinda carried away," Jane said as she blushed. 

Natasha then piped up,"you messed up the transition between the passé and the ring."

"I know, but I'm not warmed up, I told you I wasn't going to be good."

"I guess, but at least it was better than the crap on the tv."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Replied Jane sarcastically as they both turner to Steve. 

Steve had frozen, his jaw dropped and his popcorn had spilt all over him. Natasha snapped a quick picture for some useful blackmail material. 

"I think we broke Captain America." Jane giggled, "oh god, I got it, it wasn't an x it was a multiplication sign. Bye Tasha, Cap."

And with that Jane ran off to finish the equation leaving everyone behind and a gobsmacked Steve.


	6. Bruce Banner

Chapter 6: Bruce

Jane was stressed and was pacing around her lab trying to calm down and focus on the problem at hand.

"You know if I were you I would have already hulked out," grinned Bruce easily as he stepped into the lab, "you ok?"

"I'm fine," Jane waved him away, "just a little stressed."

"Maybe if you take a step back from your work you might just see where you are going wrong, it helps trust me."

"I have taken a step back, in fact i have taken several," as she demonstrated her point by resuming her pacing.

"You know that's not what I mean, I mean leave your lab, visit someone else's, god knows Tony does it often enough, and at least you would not interfere with my work too badly. You know last week he was stuck on how he was meant to reduce to weight on the quinjets while making them stronger and increasing the speed?"

Jane nodded.

"Well while he was stuck on that problem he decided to pay me a visit and he started to upgrade my holo-tables. He ended up deleting all the work I was doing, I am only so thankful JARVIS decided to save all my work on a server when he saw Tony begin to mess around."

"Your most welcome Dr.Banner, I felt that it would be the best course of action considering Sir had not slept three days prior except for the occasional nap."interjected JARVIS.

"And if visiting another lab does not help you can always join me down in the gym while i do some breathing exercises and a bit of yoga, the offer is there if you ever want to collect."

I'll think about it, I might just go down to the gym in a few to work out a bit anyway, I've been cooped up here for too long andI need to stretch my muscles."

"Well now that I've gotten you to abandon your work I think I'll return to mine."

"Thanks Bruce, I'm just going to finish up here and see if the gyms free."

"Right, well see you around."

"Yeah, see you later Bruce."

Jane saved her work and make her way to the gym, she was pleasantly surprised to see that it was empty, but considering the number of gyms Stark Tower's had and the number of residents, it was statistically unlikely that two people would be in the same gym at the same time, unless they had agreed to meet. Jane decided to do a long warmup, to help work out all the stiffness in her muscles, thanks to the extra training Natasha was putting her through to learn self-defense.

Jane started out at the barre doing a few demi plies and then a grand plié in first position and then also in second and fifth, Jane continued on to do twenty grand battlements on each leg before switching over and putting her feet together and doing thirty releve's, she continued to repeat these exercises to workout all her muscles for about twenty minutes with some variations along the way to get the full body burn. Jane was just finishing up after her intense workout and rehearsing her routines a few times when Bruce walked in with a yoga mat rolled up under his arm, he was surprised to see Jane there.

"I did say I was going to the gym." Jane reminded him.

"Yeah, but I'm a bit surprised at the ballet, when did you come down here?"

"I don't know exactly, but about fifteen minutes after you left."

"Bloody hell Jane, you've been down here for five hours."

"I know, I was practicing." she said as she began to remove her pointe shoes, "I need to get a good few new pairs of shoes," she remarked absentmindedly, "I go through them so fast."

"You can just ask JARVIS to order a few pairs for you."

"Your order has been placed Dr Foster." JARVIS's voice echoed weirdly around the room.

"Thanks J." Jane replied as she removed her socks.

"Jesus Jane, your feet look terrible, I don't think you should be dancing on them." Bruce exclaimed as he got a glance at Jane's feet.

"Bruce, every ballet dancer's feet look like this, and their fine I'll just put some cream on them and put them up for the night." Jane's feet were calloused and the parts where the ballet shoe had rubbed were raw and on occasion slightly bloody. Jane just fixed a bandaid over the raw parts and slipped on her socks again. "Well I'm going to go so, bye."

"You don't have to leave because I'm here, I can leave, or you can join me."

"It's fine, I've finished here anyway, but thanks for the offer, another time, maybe. Jane walked out of the gym and left Bruce to do his yoga.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the chapters will never be that long no matter how much I try to draw the story out, there is just no enough stuff to fit in the chapter, so they are like little one shots. If you have a character you would like me to add into this story please message me.


	7. Tony Stark

Chapter 7: Tony

Tony had finally emerged from his cave, also known as his workshop, he was just in time for a team dinner, which meant everybody was there except Pepper, she was in Belgium setting up the new Stark tower. Tony wandered out with his tablet in hand and asked,

"Would someone like to tell me why we just purchased several pairs of ballet shoes, because this is not funny, I already bought plenty for Natalie over there, and I don't want to be buying more as a gag because nobody else dances, unless Katniss, you want to tell us something."

"Ha, funny metal man, just shut up, sit down and eat," groaned Clint as he doled out the food, "and no, the shoes are not for me."

"And I don't understand why anyone would need lots of pairs princess pumps anyway, unless your stocking up for an apocalypse. But even then the shoes aren't necessary and I have everything you could need in the basement."

"Stark, a good dancer can wear out a pair of ballet shoes in one training session, then they would need to repair them." announced Jane as she grabbed a chicken wing from the table overflowing with food before a super soldier with a bottomless stomach could steal the last one. "Ten pairs of shoes would last about a year before you would need to start to think about replacing them."

"I thought your field was astrophysics not dance."

"My field is astrophysics, but before it was dance, specifically ballet. The shoes are not for Clint, they're for me."

"What... Why did I not know this? JARVIS, when did this happen?'

"Sir it would appear that before Ms.Foster went to Culver she was dancing professionally in a prestigious New York City company, she quit and then later became an astrophysicist, you would know this if you fully read the files which I compiled per your request, and did not just skim over them."

"Don't get sassy with me J, I'm a genius I don't have enough time to look over everything, I'm too busy."

"Of course Sir, I never intended to imply that you were just to lazy to read the whole file."

"Traitor."

"Sir I would like to take this moment to remind you that you have several urgent meeting that will require 75% of your time next week."

"What, when did this happen?"

"It would appear Sir that the meeting just appeared in your calendar less than one minute ago."

"Right J, I get the message. Foster you can have your shoes and J I love you buddy, do you want an update?'

"I would love an update Sir, thank you."

"Right now that that's sorted J can you delete the meetings." Tony asked hopefully.

"What meeting Sir, it would appear that your calendar for tomorrow is empty."

"Your a star." Tony beamed.

Tony glanced around the room, "how come nobody looks surprised that Foster can dance?"

"Everybody else knew." Jane supplied, "but you."

"Oh, well no more secrets in my tower," he glanced up, "except the spy twins, they can have as many secrets as they want, can somebody pass the potatoes now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, if someone wants me to continue on this story to include other MCU characters please message me.(It could be characters like Pepper, Phil, Fury ect.) Thanks.


End file.
